Layoffs to Gut East St. Louis Police Force
The Rev. Joseph Tracy said he’s tired of going to funerals. And now, he suspects he’ll be going to more of them.
“It’s open field day now,” said Tracy, the pastor of Straightway Baptist Church here. “The criminals are going to run wild.”
Gang activity. Drug dealing. Cold-blooded killing. Tracy worries that a decision to shrink the police force by almost 30 percent will bring more of everything.
The pastor voiced his concern on Friday at a raucous special City Council meeting at which East St. Louis Mayor Alvin Parks announced that the city will layoff 37 employees, including 19 of its 62 police officers, 11 firefighters, four public works employees, and three administrators. The layoffs take effect on Sunday.
Parks said the weak economy has robbed the city of badly need money. For example, revenue from the Casino Queen was $900,000 below budget expectations last year. There are no signs of improvement, Parks said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Signs of Strength in Economy and Banking Lift Stocks; S.&P. 500 Up 2.2%
Wall Street began August with a broad surge on Monday afternoon, fueled by positive news about bank earnings in Europe and a survey that said American manufacturing was stronger than expected in July.
The widely followed Standard & Poor’s index of 500 stocks climbed more than 24 points, or 2.2 percent, in preliminary figures. The Dow industrials gained 208.44 points, or 1.99 percent, to close at 10,674.38.
While concerns over Europe have recently had an influence on investor sentiment, the banks’ earnings, results of the European banking stress tests and purchasing managers’ index for the 16 countries that use the euro appeared to ease some pessimism that a global credit crisis was imminent. In the United States, investors saw positive signs in the Institute for Supply Management’s survey, which fell less than expected in July, and in an unexpected rise in construction spending reported for June.
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UK: HSBC Posts Bumper Profits of £7 Billion in Just Six Months as Osborne Demands Banks Lend More to Struggling Businesses
Banking group HSBC announced bumper profits today of £7billion in just six months.
The announcement, which immediately pushed up share prices by four per cent, came as George Osborne and Vince Cable warned that banks must lend more money to businesses.
The huge profits — up 121 per cent — are likely to be replicated by a string of other High Street banks when results are published later this week.
The group said it was braced for ‘intense public and political scrutiny’ amid demands for increased lending, which it claimed was up four per cent since the end of last year.
[…]
Lloyds and RBS, which received billions from the taxpayer to keep them afloat, are set to unveil profits of nearly £1billion between them. In total, Britain’s five biggest banks are forecast to return half-yearly profits of £8.4billion.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
2 Men Are Guilty in Plot to Bomb Kennedy Airport
A federal jury found two Guyanese men guilty on Monday of conspiring to blow up Kennedy International Airport, concluding a month-long trial that centered on the men’s plan to set off a series of explosions along a fuel pipeline that cuts through the city.
But the plot never advanced beyond the conceptual stage, and the planning sessions, some of which were recorded by a confidential informant, were at times grandiose and absurd. Suggestions of destroying the American economy vied with calls for a “ninja-style attack.”
The defendants, Russell M. Defreitas and Abdul Kadir, had been monitored from an early stage in the plot by the informant, who posed as a member of the group, which included a number of other participants. The informant, Steven Francis, had recorded the men during surveillance missions to the airport and on international trips to secure financial and logistical support for the attack.
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Buxom Blonde Looks to Stop Ground Zero Mosque
Gubernatorial candidate would legalize prostitution, marijuana, but not Islamic center
She ran one of New York’s biggest prostitution rings, with a client list that she claims included former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer.
She served nearly four months in prison for her role in the Spitzer scandal but is now running for governor herself on a platform that includes legalizing prostitution, marijuana and same-sex marriage.
But even for Kristin Davis, previously dubbed the “Manhattan Madam” by some in the news media, the proposed $100 million, 13-story Islamic cultural center and mosque near the site of the 9-11 attacks is too much.
“I don’t see it as religious freedom; I mean does religious freedom mean that hate groups should build statues to Hitler in front of Jewish temples in America?” she asked today in a radio interview with Aaron Klein, WND’s senior reporter and host of an investigative radio program on New York’s WABC 770 AM radio.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Chuck Norris: Obama’s U.S. Assassination Program? Part 2
In Part 1 last week, I gave evidence of how the Obama administration is importing its overseas policy to assassinate U.S. citizens and implementing it stateside against citizens it deems as radical threats to American security and safety. (If you have not it, please read Part 1 before you read remaining of Part 2).
National security adviser John Brennan explained that the problem of homegrown terrorists ranks as a top priority because of the increasing number of U.S. individuals who have become “captivated by extremist ideology or causes.” He went on to say, “There are … dozens of U.S. persons who are in different parts of the world that are very concerning to us.”
Former director of national intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair even confessed before Congress: “We take direct actions against terrorists in the intelligence community. If we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that.”
That’s right. No arrest. No Miranda rights. No due process. No trial. Just a bullet.
Ironically, or maybe not so, and also under the radar, the Supreme Court just ruled to back off strict enforcement of Miranda rights. Charles Weisselberg, a law professor at U.C. Berkeley, said, “This is the most important Miranda decision in a decade. And it will have a substantial impact on police practices. This decision approves of the practice of giving the warnings and then asking questions of the suspect, without asking first whether he wants to waive his rights.”
President Obama himself explained in an often overlooked statement within the document of the National Security Strategy: “We are now moving beyond traditional distinctions between homeland and national security. … This includes a determination to prevent terrorist attacks against the American people by fully coordinating the actions that we take abroad with the actions and precautions that we take at home.”
Now, it finally is coming to light why back on Dec. 16, 2009, Obama signed an executive order “designating Interpol [International Criminal Police Organization] as a public international organization entitled to enjoy certain privileges, exemptions and immunities.”
Glenn Beck spoke for a host of other government watchdogs back then, when he asked on the air on his Jan. 7 show, “We’ve been asking ever since it was signed: why? Who can tell me what special interest group asked for this? If it were about terror, why not tell us that when he signed it? This Congress attacks our CIA and FBI, but Interpol gets immunity? Why? It makes no sense.”
It all comes down to one basic verb. Can you find it in the following paragraph?
Obama’s executive order reads, “By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act (22 U.S.C. 288), and in order to extend the appropriate privileges, exemptions, and immunities to the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol)…”
There’s the magic verb: “to extend!”
As I wrote in any earlier column on Interpol, is it also just coincidental that Interpol is exempt from typical American search and seizure laws?
Anyone still not connecting the dots?
There is one more titanic element that I must stress. The one overriding dilemma for Americans in Obama’s hunt for homegrown terrorists is that, remember, he has changed the definitions of terrorism and terrorists. Their definitions no longer necessarily include or infer Islamic extremism or extremists.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
EPA Control of CO2: Obama’s Vehicle to Destroy the US Economy is Launched
John Topping, who served as editor of portions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) First Assessment Report (FAR) concerning impacts of climate change, wrote an article titled, “Massachusetts v. EPA: A Turning Point for the US on Climate Change?”
He sees the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) loss as a victory because they can now control CO2, fossil fuels, and the US economy. Frighteningly, it’s based on completely falsified science and is totally unnecessary. It’s what President Obama really meant when he talked about change. In a pre-election interview he revealed his true intention, “Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” EPA has launched the rocket with its economy-destroying warhead.
Cap and Trade, or control of CO2, is more important to the Obama administration than Healthcare or Financial Regulation. They knew it would be more difficult legislation to pass, as is proving the case.
Public sentiment is the key. Most agreed healthcare needed reform; the issues were method and extent of government involvement. Financial regulation had some sympathy because of traditional antipathy to Wall Street and bankers. Besides, neither implied serious negative impact on the economy or jobs. Cap and Trade is a different situation. The Senate knows from its forerunner, the Kyoto Accord, the impact on jobs and economy are very negative. They voted 95-0 against Kyoto in July 1997, but it’s closer now because they can’t get 60 votes for approval. When Kyoto was considered, the public sentiment was more in favor of global warming as a problem than it is today. Polls show neither global warming nor climate change is of concern to the public. The science has failed and been exposed as a deliberate fraud. The fact more politicians want to approve Cap and Trade underscores how political the issue has become.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Florida Church Plans to Burn Quran on 9/11 Anniversary
MIAMI: A Florida church said it plans to publicly burn copies of the Quran on the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, prompting threats from Islamic groups and warnings the move will trigger a rise in hate crimes.
The Dove World Outreach Center of Gainesville, Florida said on its Facebook page it will hold an “International Burn a Koran Day” on September 11, asking other religious groups to join in standing “against the evil of Islam. Islam is of the devil!”
“Islam and Sharia law was responsible for 9/11,” pastor Terry Jones said. “We will burn Qurans because we think it’s time for Christians, for churches, for politicians to stand up and say no; Islam and Sharia law is not welcome in the US,” the organizer of the burning action added.
Reactions to the Koran burning announcement were swift. Members of the Al-Falluja jihadist forum have threatened to “spill rivers of your (American) blood” and “a war the likes of which you have never seen before”.
Mainstream Muslim groups also denounced the move and lamented the sentiments promoted by the Gainesville church.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Frank Gaffney: On “Bashing” Muslims
Last week, a tectonic shift took place in the firmament of the War of Ideas. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich directly and forcefully took on Shariah, the totalitarian theo-political-military program of authoritative Islam that its adherents seek to impose on the entire world. As he noted, the United States is squarely in the cross-hairs of Shariah’s devotees.
In response, the usual suspects — the multiculturally sensitive elite that reflexively excuses the Islamists joined by proponents of the latters’ stealth jihad, notably elements of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) — have reflexively responded by accusing the Speaker of “bashing” Muslims. It is, of course, far easier to engage in ad hominem attacks than contend with Newt’s characteristically thoughtful and informed critique. It is also expedient to try to portray a focused challenge to the beliefs and practices of a subset of the Islamic faith as an assault on all Muslims.
In fact, it is not “bashing” all Muslims if one points out that the comprehensive doctrine to which some of them adhere is a threat to our liberties, our government and our way of life. Objectively, that is the case; a global theocracy — the end-state commanded by Shariah — administering a severely repressive, even barbaric criminal code aimed at enforcing submission by Muslims and non-Muslims alike is incompatible with the U.S. Constitution…
| — Hat tip: CSP | [Return to headlines] |
J Street Backs Ground Zero Mosque
Groups says they support “religious freedom” and “tolerance.”
Following protests against the planned construction of a mosque close to the site of the former World Trade Center in New York, Washington-based left-wing group J Street launched a petition Monday in support of the project.
A statement on the organization’s website said: “ Appalled by the opposition to plans by American Muslims to build a community center in lower Manhattan modeled after Jewish Community Centers (JCC’s) and Y’s all over the country, J Street is collecting petitions in support of religious freedom and against anti-Muslim bigotry.”
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
McMahon(D) Campaign Hits Grimm(R) For Taking ‘Jewish Money’
Mike Grimm, a G.O.P challenger to Democrat Mike McMahon’s Congressional seat, took in over $200,000 in his last filing.
But in an effort to show that Grimm lacks support among voters in the district, which covers Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, the McMahon campaign compiled a list of Jewish donors to Grimm and provided it to The Politicker.
The file, labeled “Grimm Jewish Money Q2,” for the second quarter fundraising period, shows a list of over 80 names, a half-dozen of which in fact do hail from Staten Island, and a handful of others that list Brooklyn as home.
“Where is Grimm’s money coming from,” said Jennifer Nelson, McMahon’s campaign spokeman. “There is a lot of Jewish money, a lot of money from people in Florida and Manhattan, retirees.”
[…]
Reached by phone, Grimm, who is part-Italian, part-German, said he was proud of his Jewish support and said he was disturbed to hear that the McMahon campaign compiled a separate list of his Jewish donors.
“The fact that a U.S. Congressman would separate out any group by religion or even by ethnicity is nothing short of outrageous,” he said. “This goes beyond politics.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Stakelbeck: Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin Interview
I recently sat down with retired Army Lt. General Jerry Boykin, a genuine American hero and founding member of Delta Force, for an episode of my new show Stakelbeck on Terror.
He told me that the proposed Ground Zero mosque “will increase the recruiting to the jihadist cause exponentially.”
See more from Lt. Gen. Boykin in my latest entry at Andrew Breitbart’s excellent new national security website, Big Peace.com.
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Treason’s Poster Boy
After spending an entire week poring over a few thousand of the so-called “Afghan War Logs”, more than 75,000 incident reports from the Afghanistan war allegedly leaked by a US soldier to left-leaning WikiLeaks, one thing is clear. While the disclosure of this information may not put American or coalition forces in (even more) imminent danger, it will result in even more innocents killed and it does further complicate our mission in Afghanistan in a number of ways.
[…]
The real danger of this betrayal is what our enemy can glean from it. Through their conspiracy, US Army PFC Bradley Manning and Julian Assange have compromised the identities of Afghan informants and in the most egregious cases, the names of two complete American F-15 air crews and at least one British officer, as well as classified information, some of which was deemed Secret.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Criticism of First Turkish-German Minister Grows
By Anna Reimann
Aygül Özkan was meant to be the hope of a new generation of politicians in Germany. In April she became the first politician with German-Turkish roots to become a minister in a state government. But her first months in office have proven to be a disaster and what could have been a public relations coup for her conservative party has backfired.
Aygül Özkan, 38, was meant to be the next great hope for a new generation of German politicians. In April, she became the first person of Turkish origin to be appointed as a government minister at the state level . Indeed, it was rare that a politician had been given as much advance praise or had been saddled with such great expectations.
“She’s a major role model, with her competence and her character and she will get off to a good start and do a good job,” Christian Wulff, then the state governor of Lower Saxony and now Germany’s president, said at the time. He said she would also help to “prevent parallel societies” from forming, a reference to immigrant ghettos many politicians fear are developing in German cities.
At the time of her appointment as social minister, Özkan was feted not just by her party, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), but across the political spectrum. But Özkan’s time in office so far has been marred by controversy.
Only days before taking up her job, Özkan said in an interview that “Christian symbols” — specifically crucifixes, “do not belong in state-run schools.” She added that Muslim headscarves don’t, either — positions that had even been backed by Germany’s highest court. But pressure from within her party was tremendous and Wulff reprimanded his protégé, who in turn apologized.
Later, Özkan sparked controversy because of employee contracts she had signed as a manager at TNT, a postal services company. At the company, some workers received wages of only €7.50 ($9.80) per hour. Employment lawyers accused her of having created “working conditions that were at the legal limits.” The politician responded by describing the criticism as “absurd” and “unfounded.”
A Controversial Charter for the Media
And last week, she caused an outcry when she called on journalists to sign a so-called “media charter for Lower Saxony,” in which they were supposed to agree to common standards for reporting about integration efforts in the state.
Those who signed the charter would be obligated to report on the facts and challenges of integration and to “support the integration process in Lower Saxony in the long term” as well as to “initiate and attend to projects” that further that goal. She also demanded that journalists use “culturally sensitive language.”
The move drew criticism not only from journalists, but also from members of the political opposition as well as her own party. The state’s new governor, David McAllister, who himself is the child of a Scottish soldier who was stationed in Berlin and married a German, made clear that media policies in the state would be determined by the government and not by the social ministry. “We have all learned from this and we will do everything we can to ensure that this mistake is not repeated,” McAllister said, adding that press freedom was of particular importance to him.
Meanwhile, the media policy spokesperson for the opposition Social Democrats in the state, Daniela Behrens, said last week: “I am completely bewildered that a minister would dare to propose something like that. No representative of the media would sign that. It’s censorship.” While it was desirable for the media to boost coverage of integration issues, “that has to be achieved through political efforts,” she said. “The media can only report about things that are happening.”
A representative of the German Journalists’ Association in the state described Özkan’s initiative as superfluous, noting that similar language was already contained in the journalists’ code of conduct in the state…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Dutch Become 1st NATO Member to Quit Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Netherlands became the first NATO country to end its combat mission in Afghanistan, drawing the curtain Sunday on a four-year operation that was deeply unpopular at home and even brought down a Dutch government.
The departure of the small force of nearly 1,900 Dutch troops is not expected to affect conditions on the ground. But it is politically significant because it comes at a time of rising casualties and growing doubts about the war in NATO capitals, even as allied troops are beginning what could be the decisive campaign of the war.
Canada has announced it will withdraw its 2,700 troops in 2011 and Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski has promised to pull out his country’s 2,600 soldiers the year after.
That is likely to put pressure on other European governments such as Germany and Britain to scale back their forces, adding to the burden shouldered by the United States, which expects to have 100,000 troops here by the end of next month.
President Barack Obama has pledged to begin withdrawing American troops starting in July 2011. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates told ABC’s “This Week” broadcast Sunday that only a small number of troops would leave in the initial stage.
The end of the Dutch mission took place amid bad news from Afghanistan — including rising casualties and uncertainty over a strategy that relies heavily on winning Afghan public support through improved security and a better performance by Afghanistan’s corrupt and ineffectual government.
July was the deadliest month of the nearly 9-year war for U.S. forces with 66 deaths. U.S. commanders have warned of more losses ahead as the NATO-led force ramps up operations in longtime Taliban strongholds in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, which accounted for most of last month’s American deaths.
Two more international service members were killed Sunday in fighting in the south, NATO said without specifying nationalities.
The Dutch departure was sealed after Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende’s government collapsed earlier this year over disagreement among coalition members on whether to keep troops in Afghanistan longer. His Christian Democrat party suffered heavy losses at parliamentary elections in June.
Twenty-four Dutch soldiers have died in Afghanistan since the mission began in 2006. Most of the Dutch soldiers were based in the central province of Uruzgan, where they will be replaced by soldiers from the U.S., Australia, Slovakia and Singapore.
The Dutch pioneered a strategy they called “3D” — defense, diplomacy and development — that involved fighting the Taliban while at the same time building close contacts with local tribal elders and setting up numerous development projects.
Dutch troops, some of them riding bicycles, mingled closely with the local population and often did not wear helmets while walking around towns and villages as a way of winning the trust of wary local tribes.
“The international community and NATO are helping Afghanistan to stand on its own legs so the country can defend itself against extremists who want to use it as a breeding ground for global terrorism,” Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said in a message to Dutch troops.
NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz played down the significance of the Dutch move, saying it did not signal a weakening of coalition resolve.
“The overall force posture of (NATO) and of the Afghan security forces is increasing,” Blotz told reporters. He noted the surge of mostly U.S. forces that have recently taken control of key areas in Helmand and Kandahar provinces from British and Canadian forces.
The American move into those areas is part of a bid to bolster security in Kandahar city, the biggest urban center in the south and the Taliban’s former headquarters. The U.S. move into areas around Kandahar was largely responsible for the spike in casualties over the past two months.
An escalation in fighting is likely to lead to a rise in civilian casualties, undermining support for the coalition among ordinary Afghans. A minibus full of civilians struck a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan early Sunday, and Afghan officials said six of those on board were killed.
At least 270 civilians were killed in the fighting in July, and nearly 600 wounded — a 29 percent increase in civilian casualties over the previous month, according to Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary.
U.N. figures show that the Taliban are responsible for most civilian deaths through suicide attacks and roadside bombs. Nevertheless, many Afghans still blame the coalition, arguing that without foreign troops, the Taliban would have little reason to mount attacks.
More than 200 Afghans marched through Kabul on Sunday to protest the alleged deaths of 52 civilians in a NATO rocket attack in the south. NATO has repeatedly disputed the allegations of civilian deaths, and Blotz said Sunday that a joint assessment team has only confirmed that between one and three civilians may have died in the July 23 attack in the Sangin district of Helmand province.
Protesters carried photos of children allegedly killed or wounded in the missile strike and shouted “Death to America! Death to NATO!”
“We should not tolerate such attacks. The Americans are invaders who have occupied our country in the name of fighting terrorism,” said 22-year-old Ahmad Jawed, a university student.
He said the Afghan government was equally to blame for failing to exert control over NATO troops.
“We don’t have a strong enough government to protect the rights of the Afghan people,” Jawed said.
In a letter to NATO-led forces, the top U.S. and coalition commander, Gen. David Petraeus, reminded his troops they cannot succeed in turning back the Taliban without “providing (civilians) security and earning their trust and confidence.”
“The Taliban are not the only enemy of the people,” Petraeus said in the letter. “The people are also threatened by inadequate governance, corruption and the abuse of power — the Taliban’s best recruiters.”
Petraeus told his troops to “hunt the enemy aggressively” but “use only the firepower needed to win a fight.”
“If we kill civilians or damage their property in the course of our operations, we will create more enemies than our operations eliminate,” he said.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Finland: Police Want to Get Hands on Fingerprint Registry
Nearly half a million people have been fingerprinted for Finland’s passport registry over the past year.
Police want access to a registry of fingerprints taken during the passport application process. Police say the registry would help them solve crimes. Within ten years, every person who applies for a passport in Finland will have their prints in the registry.
Over the past year, nearly half a million people in Finland have been fingerprinted for the national passport registry. This is due to an EU mandate that calls on passport applicants to provide biometric information to authenticate their identity.
Now police want to get their hands on the fingerprint registry to help in criminal investigations.
“Police think the registry could be used to help solve crimes like homicides, violent sexual assaults and drug crimes,” says National Police Commissioner Mikko Paatero.
Currently police can only use the registry to try to help determine the identity of a deceased person, and only if other means are not available.
Getting access to the registry requires a change in the law —something lawmakers seem loath to do. However, Paatero says he hopes that the next parliament will take up the issue.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Greece Will be a War Zone, Sect of Revolutionaries Warns Tourists
Security forces fear wave of terror as austerity programme provokes strikes, protests, violence — and assassination
Greek security forces have warned of a wave of violence reminiscent of the terror that stalked Italy in the seventies after urban guerillas threatened last week to turn the country into a “war zone”.
“Greece has entered a new phase of political violence by anarchist-oriented organisations that are more murderous, dangerous, capable and nihilistic than ever before,” said Athanasios Drougos, a defence and counter-terrorism analyst in Athens.
“For the first time we are seeing a nexus of terrorist and criminal activity,” he said. “These groups don’t care about collateral damage, innocent bystanders being killed in the process. They are very extreme.”
The threats came from a guerrilla group called the Sect of Revolutionaries, as it claimed credit for the murder of Sokratis Giolas, an investigative journalist. Giolas was shot dead outside his Athenian home on 19 July, in front of his pregant wife.
The gang promised to step up attacks on police, businessmen, prison guards and “corrupt” media — and, for the first time, threatened holidaymakers.
“Tourists should learn that Greece is no longer a safe haven of capitalism,” its declaration said.
“We intend to turn it into a war zone of revolutionary activity with arson, sabotage, violent demonstrations, bombings and assassinations, and not a country that is a destination for holidays and pleasure.”
In an accompanying picture, the group displayed an arsenal that included AK 47 assault rifles, semi-automatic pistols and brass knuckledusters.
“Our guns are full and they are ready to speak,” it said. “We are at war with your democracy.”
The terror threat comes as Greek authorities endure a summer of strikes and escalating upheaval. Military trucks and petrol company vehicles were employed yesterday to alleviate a fuel shortage as more 30,000 lorry and tanker truck operators ignored a government order to return to work on pain of prosecution. Shortages were reported on many holiday islands and destinations in northern Greece where thousands of tourists are stranded.
The far more serious scourge of domestic terrorism was thought to have been eradicated in 2004, with the disbandment of the 17 November group.
Born out of the turmoil that followed the collapse of US-backed military rule, 17 November murdered the CIA station chief, Richard Welch, in 1975.
For the following 27 years it targeted Turkish envoys, juntists, US military personnel, industrialists and western diplomats, including a British military attaché in Athens, Brigadier Stephen Saunders, who was murdered in 2000.
Unlike 17 November, Greece’s new generation of urban guerrillas has not tried to garner popular support.
The Sect of Revolutionaries emerged from the rioting after a teenager, Alexis Grigoropoulos, was shot dead by a policeman in December 2008. The men and women thought to comprise its closely guarded ranks are in their late twenties and thirties and appear to espouse violence almost for the sake of it.
“We don’t do politics, we do guerilla warfare,” its members announced in the proclamation placed on the boy’s grave within hours of their first attack, on a police station, in February 2009. Two weeks later they sprayed the offices of a private television station with bullets. Three months after that, they claimed their first victim, Nectarios Savvas, a police officer protecting a state witness. Six people have died in separate attacks this year.
Last month another group, yet to be named, sent a parcel bomb wrapped up as a gift to the office of Michalis Chrysohoidis, the minister in charge of public security. It killed his chief aide.
The surge in violence comes amid rising social tensions over the austerity measures enforced by the government in exchange for €110bn in emergency aid, the biggest bailout in history.
Mounting social unrest, waning support for political parties and record levels of unemployment among an increasingly radicalised youth are believed to have augmented the ranks of anti-establishment groups.
“The economic crisis has most definitely played a role in aggravating the violence,” Chrysohoidis told the Observer. “And the violence we are seeing is worst than ever before because society as a whole is more violent than ever before.”
To date Chrysohoidis, who oversaw the break-up of 17 November during a previous stint in the same post, has ordered police to tread a fine line.
But anger is growing. Security officials say it is only a matter of time before one of the three groups currently active in Greece strikes again.
More worrying, they say, are their connections to the Balkan criminal underworld that has made access to weapons dangerously easy.
“In other European countries, home-grown terrorism has been on the decrease for years,” said Drougos. “But in Greece the situation is not unlike pre-Bolshevik revolutionary Russia or Italy at the start of the terror campaign by the Red Brigades… it’s very unpredictable and tourists should be vigilant.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Hungry Berry Pickers Shoot Birds for Food
A number of Vietnamese berry pickers in Särna in central Sweden have begun shooting small birds with catapults and arrows as their situation becomes increasingly precarious, local newspaper Dalarnas Tidningar reports.
Police have warned that tensions among the 300 guest workers risk spiralling out of control as they wait for the barren surrounding forests to yield their harvest of berries.
After two weeks in Sweden the group now lacks food and money, while the berry pickers are each expected to pay 145 kronor per day ($20) for their lodgings in a youth hostel in the village in northern Dalarna. Members of the group have made repeated forays into the woods only to find that the berries have not yet ripened.
The berry pickers also claim that a contract they are being asked to sign if they are to be entitled to a residence permit does not correspond with a contract they signed in Vietnam prior to making their way to Dalarna.
The new contract, which has been reviewed by Dalarnas Tidningar, shows that they are expected to pick 90 kilos of lingonberries, or 50 kilos of blueberries, or 20 kilos of cloudberries per day if they are to be entitled to their wages.
The contract also obliges the berry pickers to pay the equivalent of 16,000 kronor each for costs incurred by their Vietnamese recruitment company for travel, visas and other outlays. The workers are promised a basic monthly wage of 17,730 kronor if they meet the terms of the contract with the opportunity to earn a higher amount if they pick more berries than the stipulated minimum.
The contract is alleged to originate from the recruitment company’s partner berry firm in Sweden, but Dalarnas Tidningar found that the phone number provided was not currently in service.
Police officers who paid a visit to the berry pickers’ camp said the situation risked turning violent if the workers were unable to earn money soon.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Terrorists Threaten to Turn Greece Into a ‘War Zone’
The group, known as the Sect of Revolutionaries, warned tourists that the country should no longer be regarded as a ‘safe haven’.
The terrorists issued a leaflet threatening to cause mayhem during the peak holiday season.
The leaflet stated: ‘We are at war with your democracy. Tourists should know that Greece is no longer a safe haven of capitalism.
‘We intend to turn it into a war zone of revolutionary activity, with arson, sabotage, violent demonstrations, bomb attacks, and assassinations.’
The guerrillas, however, said they would not carry out indiscriminate attacks and made no direct threat to tourists.
The militant group handed over a CD to an Athens newspaper containing a statement and photographs of their arsenal, which included 17 handguns and automatic weapons, assorted gun-magazines and ammunition, a knife and brass knuckles.
In a statement, the Greek government insisted that there was no danger to tourists or the Greek public. It said: ‘Any terrorist activity is taken seriously and is dealt with by highly trained officers. All appropriate security measures are being put in place to uphold safety of tourists and that of the public.’
The British Foreign Office has not changed its travel advice to tourists but urges British visitors to the country to remain vigilant.
A statement on the FCO website says: ‘There is a general threat from domestic terrorism, which has been on the increase in recent months. Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places frequented by expatriates and foreign travellers’.
The Sect of Revolutionaries first emerged in 2008 after riots in Greece, which were sparked by the police’s fatal shooting of a teenage boy.
The group has claimed responsibility for the murder of a Greek journalist, who was shot outside his home last month.
Violent attacks have recently been on the increase in Greece. A bomb exploded outside the Greek parliament in Athens in January and a local boy was killed by a second explosion in the Greek capital in March. In June, a police officer was killed by an explosive device in an attack against the Ministry of Civil Protection.
Holidaymakers in Greece also face food and fuel shortages due to a strike by truck and tanker drivers, which was launched last Monday.
Workers have reacted angrily to economic austerity measures that the debt-ridden government has implemented in exchange for €110bn in emergency aid.
The 33,000-strong union of truck drivers is protesting about government plans to open up the freight industry, which is one of many ‘closed-shop’ professions, to make the industry more competitive.
Some tourists were also caught up in flight delays and cancellations after air traffic controllers began ‘working to rule’.
On the Greek islands, vital food stuff and medicines are reported to be in short supply.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
UK: £10m SuBo on £500 a Week: Spending Limit Means Singer ‘Can’t Afford to Furnish Her New House’
She has made millions in her short music career.
But Susan Boyle receives a less than star-like £500 a week spending money, it has emerged.
It is claimed the singer is restricted to the relatively small amount and does not even own a credit card.
Her brother said the limit meant she did not have enough money to properly furnish her new £300,000 five-bedroom home.
The 49-year-old is said to have resorted to shopping at Tesco for outfits and at times travelled by bus because of her financial arrangements.
Brother Gerry Boyle claimed she had reacted with ‘distress’ because she is struggling to deal with how strictly controlled her finances are.
Miss Boyle, who found fame on Britain’s Got Talent, has accumulated about £10million in royalties after her debut album I Dreamed A Dream sold 8.5million copies.
Much of her money is understood to be ‘ring-fenced’ and not immediately available to her, while some is thought to be invested.
Yesterday sources close to Miss Boyle denied claims that she was being blocked from accessing her earnings. They said it had been her decision to impose a weekly budget for herself and to invest the rest.
They said the new house was nearly fitted out and that she could take out as much of her money as she wanted.
But Gerry Boyle, 55, raised concerns this weekend about his sister’s situation. ‘When Susan realised she can’t just walk into a bank and take out her own money she had a fit because she thought she was down to her last few quid,’ he told the News of The World.
‘Her millions are ring-fenced but Susan has no concept of money. She was extremely distressed. She lives in fear of losing everything and returning to her old life before she made it big.’
Her finances are looked after by her professional management team, which is separate from SyCo, Simon Cowell’s music company.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: David Cameron ‘Will Not Say Sorry to Pakistan’ Over Controversial Terror Comments
David Cameron will not apologise for his outspoken comments on Pakistan — despite warnings they could inflame Muslim opinion in this country.
Government sources last night indicated the Prime Minister would not withdraw his suggestion that Pakistan is ‘exporting terror’ when he meets the country’s president Asif Ali Zardari at Chequers later this week.
The comments have angered many in Pakistan, with one mob burning an effigy of Mr Cameron in Karachi at the weekend.
Yesterday, a British Labour MP warned the comments were ‘inflaming’ opinion among British Muslims.
But a government source insisted Mr Cameron’s words had not been aimed at the Pakistan government.
The source said Mr Cameron would not apologise for his outspoken remarks, adding: ‘No, he said it and he meant it.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Euro Police Knocking on Your Door. Surgery Halted by the 48-Hour Week. So Much for Tory Promises on the EU
When the Tories fought the general election, they promised they would yield no more power to the European Union, and that they would even seek to regain from the EU some of the powers that Britain had already lost.
These pledges were designed to take the sting out of the fact that they were not, after all, going to offer a referendum on the European constitution.
Three months on, it looks increasingly as if none of their promises to safeguard British power is going to be kept. Indeed, the coalition Government even seems to be going in precisely the opposite direction.
Last week, home Secretary Theresa May told the Commons that Britain had decided to opt into the controversial European Investigation Order.
According to critics, this will mean that prosecutors from any EU country will be granted unprecedented and intrusive powers over people in Britain.
They would be able to bug the phone calls of British citizens, monitor their bank accounts and gain access to their DNA if they suspected them of committing a crime in those countries — however trivial the offence, and even if it were not a crime in the UK.
Britain’s over-stretched police would not only be almost powerless to prevent such personal details from being handed over, but they could even be ordered to carry out investigations or surveillance for their EU counterparts.
Such powers would be an outright onslaught on British liberties and independence.
Yet Mrs May — cheered on by Labour MPs, who fell over themselves to welcome her announcement — airily swatted away such concerns.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Family Victory After Council ‘Illegally’ Snooped on Them 21 Times to Check They Lived in School Catchment Area
Town hall snoopers are dealt a blow today by a landmark ruling in favour of parents who were spied on 21 times using anti-terror laws to check they lived in a school catchment area.
A tribunal will rule that Poole Borough Council was acting illegally when it put Jenny Paton, Tim Joyce and their three daughters under covert surveillance for three weeks.
Officials had claimed it was necessary to use the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to find out if the family had lied about their address to win a school place for their youngest child.
They wrongly suspected the family of cheating and tailed them round the clock, filling out detailed surveillance forms and describing their car as a ‘target vehicle’.
But the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which heard a complaint from the family last year, has concluded the council’s operation was an improper, unnecessary and unlawful use of the powers.
Campaigners hailed the ruling as a landmark victory that would curb the worst abuses by so-called ‘town hall Stasi’ who train hidden cameras and even undercover agents on the law-abiding public.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Firebomb Gang Convicted of Murdering Innocent Husband and Wife in an Honour Killing That Went Dreadfully Wrong
Four men were convicted today of murdering an innocent couple by firebombing the wrong house in a botched ‘honour’ killing.
Abdullah Mohamed, 41, and his wife Ayesha, 39, were at home in bed when petrol was poured through the letterbox of their home in Blackburn, Lancashire, and set on fire.
But the gang recruited to carry out the attack were supposed to target the house of a man 20 doors away who was having a secret affair with another man’s married sister.
Mr Mohammed was killed in the blaze in October last year and his wife died a week later from her injuries.
Two of their three children, a girl aged 14 and a boy aged nine, were also trapped in the house but survived.
The arson attack had been arranged by London Underground systems operator Hisamuddin Ibrahim, 21, after he discovered his married sister was having an affair.
Ibrahim had asked his best friend Habib Iqbal and two other men, Mohammed Miah and Sadek Miah (no relation), to drive up from London overnight to carry out the attack on the home of her lover.
Ibrahim, 21, of Shelley Avenue, London, Habid Iqbal, 25, of Strone Road, London, and Mohammed Miah, 19, of Pelley Road, London, and Sadek Miah, 23, of Byng Street, Isle of Dogs, London, all denied murder, but Sadek Miah pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
It took a jury just 90 minutes today to convict all four defendants of murder following a six-week trial at Preston Crown Court. They are due to be sentenced tomorrow.
The court had heard that Hisamuddin Ibrahim had arranged the attack after discovering that his sister Hafija Gorji was having an affair with Mohammad ‘Mo’ Ibrahim who is no relation. She was married to a cousin from India, while her sister was married to her husband’s brother.
The lovers met in April 2009 and when rumours circulated about the affair, Ibrahim was summoned to a meeting and forced to ‘swear on the Koran’ he had not been having an affair with Hafija.
But she told police that her husband had found out about the affair a month before the fire and had assaulted her. Hafija reported the assault to police and said she was fearful for Mo’s safety.
Mr Brian Cummings QC, prosecuting, said during the trial: ‘Hisamuddin Ibrahim,on behalf of his family, wanted to kill Mohammed or Mo Ibrahim, to punish him for damaging the family’s honour for having an affair with his married sister Hafija Gorji.’
During the trial the jury were shown grainy CCTV images of a VW golf near to the home just prior to the fire being started and going round the block three times before parking up.
The three killers were then seen walking in the direction of the Abdullah home, and then running back to the car before fleeing the scene with the lights off. Inquiries revealed the vehicle was registered to the mother of one of the arsonists in London and had been driven up to Blackburn the previous evening.
Following the killings, Lancashire Constabulary launched one of the biggest murder inquiries ever undertaken by the force, which saw 590 statements taken, 1,486 lines of enquiry followed and seized 1,684 exhibits and had over 100 police officers and staff working on the case.
Joanne Cunliffe, Crown Advocate from Lancashire CPS, said after the trial: ‘The deaths of Mr and Mrs Mohammed have had a devastating impact not only on their family, but also on the community where they lived. Mr and Mrs Mohammed were complete strangers to the men who have today been convicted of their murder and their three children have been orphaned in a terrible case of mistaken identity.
‘All four of these defendants bear equal guilt for the murders. It was a planned and callous attack.’
Speaking after the case, Ashraf Mohammed, the 19-year-old son of Abdullah and Ayesha Mohammed, paid tribute to his parents.
‘No words can truly do justice to how amazing my parents were. They were really the most loving, kind and selfless people you could ever meet.
‘My father touched the hearts of many around the world. He was an inspiration to everyone around him and an invaluable asset to the community. He was very passionate about charity and devoted his life to helping the unfortunate and disadvantaged.
‘My mother was also a very friendly and caring lady who had a heart of gold. She was extremely kind and gentle and was always seen with a smile on her face.
‘There isn’t a day that goes by in which our family does not remember my parents and their loss has left an empty place in our hearts that can never be filled.’
| — Hat tip: CB2 | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Four Guilty of Bungled ‘Honour Killings’
Four men were convicted today of murdering a couple in a bungled honour killing arson attack.
Abdullah Mohammed, 41, and his wife, Aysha Mohammed, 39, were overcome by smoke and fumes after petrol was poured through their letterbox and set alight.
Hisamuddin Ibrahim, 21, wanted to punish a man who was having an affair with his married sister and ordered three men to cause a blaze at his terraced home in the early hours while he was asleep.
But the wrong address was targeted as the blaze was started at the home of the Mohammeds in 175 London Road in Blackburn, Lancashire — instead of the intended address of 135 London Road.
A jury at Preston Crown Court took just 90 minutes following a six-week trial to convict Ibrahim, Habib Iqbal, Sadek Miah and Mohammed Miah (no relation) of their murders.
London Underground systems operator Ibrahim was said to be enraged when he discovered his sister, Hafija Gorji, 22, was committing adultery with a man called Mo Ibrahim (no relation) she met at a wedding in Manchester.
She was married to a cousin from India, while her sister was married to her husband’s brother.
A month before the fire, Hafija’s lover lied as he swore on the Koran in front of her relatives that the pair were just good friends.
Just a week before the couple’s death, Ibrahim viewed a story on the BBC Crimewatch website about an unsolved fatal blaze in Eastbourne.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Nine Men Convicted of Child Sexual Exploitation
Nine men have been convicted for their role in the sexual exploitation of a 14-year-old girl from Rochdale.
The men gave the victim drugs and alcohol and forced her to have sex with men for money.
The girl went missing from home in Rochdale on two occasions, first on 16 February and again on 22 February 2008.
The second time she was missing for 11 days — turning up in Rusholme, Manchester. When officers spoke to her she told them she had been sexually exploited by a number of men while she was missing.
Over the following weeks the girl was spoken to by a specialist team of officers. She was able to identify the places she was taken and the men who had abused her.
She had been abused by a number of different men as she went from one vulnerable situation to another. In many cases, the men she was associating with were not linked, but they did all identify the child’s vulnerability and take advantage of her.
Superintendent Paul Savill from GMP, said: “This child has been through an absolutely horrifying ordeal at the hands of these men.
“The level of abuse she has suffered is almost beyond belief. She has been treated like a commodity; beaten, threatened and sexually exploited.
“These men took advantage of her vulnerability with no regard for her wellbeing.
“I commend this young girl for her bravery in supporting this case. Even after her ordeal she was able to revisit the sites where she was abused and testify against her abusers in court. This is not easy and can often be the main obstacle we face when trying to bring prosecutions in cases of child sexual exploitation.
“In Manchester we have a specially trained team called the Protect Team who specialise in dealing with victims of child sexual exploitation. They help these young people to pursue prosecutions while coming to terms with what has happened to them and moving on with their lives.”
The Protect Team involves GMP and Manchester Children’s Services working with children’s charities to combat the issue of child sexual exploitation.
Their work involves disrupting, investigating and prosecuting offenders, while offering the support to victims and their families from a specially trained team of professionals.
The victim herself has released a statement about her ordeal: “These people exploit young girls, introduce them to prostitution, feed them drugs and alcohol and tell them they love them. I know this because it has happened to me and it has changed my life enormously. I just hope that people will be more aware of this now and will be able to prevent this from happening to other vulnerable young girls.
The victim’s parents have released the following statement: “We are very proud of our daughter for her courage in assisting Greater Manchester Police with the prosecution of these abusers who caused her such terrible harm. No family should have to endure a nightmare experience like the one we have been through.
“Sadly, we now know that many young and vulnerable teenaged girls are targeted, groomed and abused in this way by such offenders; we support our daughter in hoping that these successful prosecutions will send a message that will help protect other children.”
Offender Details
Asad Yousaf Hassan, 28, of Rivington Street, Rochdale was sentenced to two years in prison after admitting two counts of sexual activity with a child.
Mohammed Basharat, 28, of Prospect Street, Rochdale was sentenced to two years in prison after he pleaded guilty to sexual activity with a child under 16.
Mohammed Atif, 29, of Rivington Street, Rochdale was sentenced to two years in prison after admitting to sexual activity with a child.
Aftab Khan, 31, of Tarporley Avenue, Fallowfield pleaded guilty to one count of controlling a child prostitute and one count of sexual activity with a child. He was sentenced to nine years in prison. This was later reduced to seven years on appeal.
Abid Khaliq, 30, of Shrewsbury Street, Stretford was sentenced to eight months in prison after admitting perverting the course of justice.
Ahmed Noorzai, 29, of Royce Court in Hulme was sentenced to four years in prison after he was found guilty of paying for the sexual services of a child.
Mohammed Anwar Safi, 31, of no fixed address was sentenced to 31 months in prison after admitting paying for the sexual services of a child.
Mohammed Khan, 26, of Royce Court, Hulme was sentenced to four years in prison after he was found guilty of facilitating child prostitution.
Najibullah Safi, 32, of Reabrook Avenue, West Gorton was sentenced to two years in prison after admitting to sexual activity with a child.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Shimon Peres Was Wrong: If Anything, Britian Has the Strongest Philo-Semitic Tradition in Europe
I’m glad Shimon Peres has retracted his claim that the British Establishment is motivated by anti-Semitism. It was a silly and unpresidential thing to say and, more to the point, it was inaccurate. No doubt it can be frustrating to deal with FCO mandarins; but, wrong as our officials are about most things, they are rarely anti-Semitic.
It’s true that our diplomats tend to emphasise Britain’s relations with its former Arab protectorates, notably Jordan and the Gulf monarchies. Nothing wrong with that, of course, though you can see why it makes some Israelis uneasy.
It’s true, too, that many FCO officials are Euro-federalists. Committed as they are to supra-nationalism, they subliminally resent the country which represents the world’s greatest vindication of the national principle. For 2000 years, Jews were stateless and scattered, but they never abandoned their dream of a homeland: “Next year in Jerusalem!” Then, against all the odds — providentially, we might almost say — they fulfilled it, thereby refuting the EU’s ruling doctrine, namely that the nation-state has no special legitimacy.
So, are British civil servants unsupportive of Israel? Yes, sometimes. But the idea that anti-Semitism is unusually prevalent in Britain is wretchedly ahistorical. I suggest President Peres reads Paul Johnson’s History of the Jews. Johnson argues convincingly that, prior to the opening up of North America, England was the securest and freest place to live if you were Jewish.
Paradoxically, this was in part because Jews had been expelled in 1290. In consequence, England did not develop a different legal classification to cover its Jewish subjects. In other European countries, because there was no separation of church and state, and because the authorities couldn’t apply canon law to non-Christians, Jews were placed in a separate judicial category, which made them vulnerable to formalised discrimination.
In England, by contrast, after Cromwell invited Jews to return in 1656, they faced only the penalties sporadically imposed on all congregations outside the Established Church. In other words, British Jews had the same civil status as British Quakers or British Catholics until all religious disqualifications were lifted in the nineteenth century.
This is not to say that there is no such thing as English anti-Semitism. Anthony Julius has written a detailed book about it which points out, among other things, that the absence of Jews in England didn’t prevent Shakespeare from creating, in Shylock, the most powerful anti-Semitic character in literature. On the narrow question of Shylock, Julius is right. As Harold Bloom puts it, “Shakespeare’s persuasiveness has its unfortunate aspects; The Merchant of Venice may have been more of an incitement to anti-Semitism than The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, though less than the Gospel of John. We pay a price for what we gain from Shakespeare”.
But this doesn’t show, as Julius sometimes seems to believe, that England is uniquely anti-Semitic; rather, it shows that Shakespeare’s oeuvre is uniquely powerful — something we already knew.
The problem with drawing together random spools of anti-Jewish prejudice and weaving them into a theory is that you ignore the other side of the story.. There is also a philo-Semtic and Zionist tradition in Britain which is without equal in Europe; a tradition well-rooted in all three main parties. I had never heard a serious anti-Semitic remark until I was elected to the European Parliament. Shortly after I arrived, the chamber passed a resolution against the inclusion of Jörg Haider’s Freedom Party in the Austrian government, mainly on grounds that Haider, in those days, was a Euro-sceptic. After the vote, I found myself sharing a lift with a young Italian Christian Democrat. “You realise, of course,” he told me, “that this whole fuss has been got up by the Jews”.
Startled, I replied that, as far as I could tell, the issue was dividing my Jewish no less than my gentile constituents. I added that I had that morning received a letter from one of my Conservative activists, himself a refugee from Vienna. Although no supporter of Haider, my constituent was convinced that the EU was making a mistake by challenging the result of a democratic election. “Ah well,” said the Italian, with a touch of boredom, “maybe your English Jews are different. But in Italy they’re very powerful”.
It was the first time I heard such a remark in Brussels, but not the last.. Yet I can assure Mr Peres, hand on heart, that I have never heard anything of the sort from a British politician.
[JP note: Long on rhetoric, short on substance — what is Hannan trying to hide?]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Tory Party Chairman Says Muslim Women Should be Allowed to Wear the Burka
Wearing a burka does not prevent Muslim women ‘engaging in everyday life’ in Britain, the Conservative Party chairman Sayeeda Warsi claimed yesterday.
Lady Warsi, the first Muslim woman to serve in the Cabinet, defended the right of women to choose to wear the burka in comments that will reignite the row about the full face veil.
A backbench Tory MP has launched a bid to ban wearing the burka in public, and critics claim itis a symbol of oppression, arguing that some Muslim women are forced to wear the veil by their husbands.
But Lady Warsi yesterday launched a passionate defence of the face coverings, suggesting that many Muslim women choose to wear them of their own free will.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A Geopolitical Game Changer
A door has been closed. But amid the roar, the creak of an opening window was faintly audible. This window, a gigantic deposit of natural gas called Leviathan, 6.5 times the size of Tel Aviv, was found, roughly 100 nautical miles from where the flotilla fiasco took place and well within Israel’s extended territorial waters.
An old adage says that when God closes a door, somewhere he opens a window. To most people, last week’s events off the coast of Gaza marked a sharp decline in Israel’s strategic posture. The Mavi Marmara incident sparked international condemnation and delivered what may have been a death blow to Jerusalem’s already precarious relations with Turkey. For decades that country was Israel’s closest ally in the Muslim world, but since the election of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it is increasingly in the thrall of fundamentalist Islam.
A door has been closed. But amid the roar, the creak of an opening window was faintly audible. This window, a gigantic deposit of natural gas called Leviathan, 6.5 times the size of Tel Aviv, was found, roughly 100 nautical miles from where the flotilla fiasco took place and well within Israel’s extended territorial waters. This discovery may provide Israel with security in terms of its supply of electricity, turn it into an important natural gas exporter and provide a shot in the arm of some $300 billion over the life of the field — one-and-a-half times the national GDP — to the Israeli economy, already one of the most resilient in the world.
More importantly, this discovery is nothing short of a geopolitical game changer. To understand its magnitude, consider this: The world’s biggest gas discovery in 2009, 238 billion cubic meters, was made by a U.S.-Israel consortium at a site called Tamar, 60 miles off the coast of Haifa. The nearby Leviathan field is estimated to be twice that size. Altogether the basin in the eastern Mediterranean to which those fields belong could contain an amount of gas equivalent to one-fifth of U.S. natural gas reserves. For a small country like Israel, such a bonanza could not have come at a better time…
| — Hat tip: Reinhard | [Return to headlines] |
Campus Apostate: Former Uc Irvine Muslim Student Union Member — and Former Muslim — Speaks Out
A woman describes what it was like to extricate herself from the most notorious MSU in the country.
The following is an interview with “OC Apostate,” a former UC Irvine student who made the decision to leave Islam and the Muslim Student Union at UCI. Though as OC Apostate describes it, the two decisions were not related.
This interview provides a unique firsthand description of the MSU from an insider’s perspective, something usually unavailable to the outside community. As readers will see, OC Apostate did not have an easy time disengaging from the MSU.
Why did you decide to leave Islam and the Muslim Student Union? Were the two decisions related?
My parents were not religious before; they kept the bare minimum. When I was 5, my mother became more religious after meeting a religious teacher. We moved to London to get a better religious education for a year. The Muslim community there is a lot more fundamentalist. No music, avoid non-Muslims, no assimilation, women can’t cut their hair, all kinds of rules. That’s the brand of Islam that influenced me. We came back; I became very active in the Muslim community. I became involved with my high school MSA.
By that time I had exhausted my parents’ supply of religious books, so I began reading secular books and began being exposed to other viewpoints. I soon began to realize that it was not OK to impose my religion on other people.
When I still wore the hijab, I took a class where there was no homework, tests, or anything. Just discussion and debate. This particular class included classmates with very different views, and I found myself having my mind opened on topics on which I thought I had set views. Once, the teacher touched my shoulder and said to me: “So young and yet you know what your whole life is going to be.” That little remark would come back to haunt me.
After I began college, I joined the MSU at UCI. I wrote articles for them, and everyone loved them. I got promoted to the position of section editor — and that’s how I learned about the dark side of the MSU. My writers never submitted their work on time; their excuse was they were always busy protesting or building the apartheid wall. Yelling about Israel and calling in speakers no one liked was more important to them than serving the community. They let a prominent magazine that everyone loved become obsolete because they were too busy hating Israel.
I grew disillusioned with them after that. By that time I had to admit I no longer believed in Islam; I left Islam first, and then left the MSU. It seemed ridiculous to me to continue to represent a religion on campus in which I no longer believed. It was tough but I had to admit it to myself. I felt it was important. I thought I was the only one in the whole world who had ever converted out of Islam, but I started looking around and found a lot of Muslims have converted to Christianity or even to atheism, humanism, and agnosticism. I started a blog in the hopes of helping other ex-Muslims to see that they weren’t alone.
Although I didn’t attach my real name to it, the blog ended up being a bad idea. The MSU figured out who I was. I had one friend left in the MSU; she let me know that, to them, I was an item to be brought up, a nuisance, a problem. People had started talking. It was obvious I wasn’t Muslim — my headscarf was off. I was getting dirty looks from people I didn’t know. I had friends with me who noticed this. One time by the UCI bookstore some woman was staring me down. My friend said, “Look behind you.” We walked away. I didn’t know this woman. How did she know I was an ex-Muslim? I grew uncomfortable. My father told me that people told him that his daughter ought to shut up.
So I shut down the blog for my family’s safety.
Were there any differences in the way people, friends, family, MSU members, or community acted towards you after your decision? Did the MSU’s behavior differ from non-affiliated Muslims at all?…
| — Hat tip: REP | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Fears Turks Could Pass Its Secrets to Iran
JERUSALEM, Aug 2 (Reuters) — Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak has voiced concern that once-stalwart ally Turkey could share Israeli intelligence secrets with Iran, revealing a deep distrust as Ankara’s regional interests shift.
The leaked comments by Barak cast doubt on how much Israel is willing or able to reconcile with Turks outraged at its navy’s killing of nine of their compatriots aboard an aid ship that tried to run the Gaza Strip blockade on May 31.
Until relations soured, Turkey had been the Muslim power closest to the Jewish state, a friendship largely based on military cooperation and intelligence sharing.
In a closed-door briefing to activists aligned with his centre-left Labour Party at a kibbutz near Jerusalem on July 25, Barak still called Turkey a “friend and major strategic ally”.
But he described Hakan Fidan, the new head of its National Intelligence Organisation, as a “friend of Iran”.
“There are quite a few secrets of ours (entrusted to Turkey) and the thought that they could become open to the Iranians over the next several months, let’s say, is quite disturbing,” he said in a segment of the speech broadcast by Army Radio. Barak was speaking in the context of past Israeli-Turkish intelligence cooperation, an audience member told Reuters on Monday. An Israeli defence official said the event was private and that the aired recording of Barak had not been authorised.
Appointed in May, Fidan was previously a foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, whose AK Party has roots in political Islam and has often censured Israel.
Political sources in Ankara said that Fidan, a former envoy to the U.N. nuclear watchdog, was also involved in a Turkish- and Brazilian-brokered compromise proposal — received coolly in the West — to curb Iran’s controversial uranium enrichment.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Tobacco Tins From Lawrence of Arabia’s Army Discovered
Two tobacco tins used by Lawrence of Arabia’s army have been discovered during an excavation of a campsite used during the 1916-18 Great Arab Revolt.
The tins were discovered by archaeologists who have been surveying the Arab army site in Wuheida, southern Jordan, since it was discovered in November.
They were used to supply Wills cigarettes from Bristol to British and Arab troops fighting the Ottoman Turks during the First World War.
Archaeologists from Bristol University also recovered numerous bullets, spent cartridges, cartridge clips, and British military buttons from the encampment.
In 1916 Arabs keen on freeing themselves from Ottoman rule launched the Great Arab Revolt.
TE Lawrence, or Lawrence of Arabia, led a small band of Arab fighters to capture the important town of Aqaba from Ottoman hands — a key moment in the war.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Islamists Gain Upper Hand in Russian Republic
Nowhere in Russia is the situation so explosive as in the autonomous republic of Dagestan. An ongoing Islamist insurgency has plunged the corruption-plagued region into near civil war. Some high-ranking Russian officials believe it will take years to defeat the extremists, if it can be done at all.
An old man is trudging home through the narrow, dusty streets of Gubden, carrying a last memento of his murdered son in the pocket of his trousers. The photo of his eldest son, which the man has stored on his mobile phone, shows a gaping hole next to his left eye. “They killed him when he could no longer defend himself,” says the man, whose name is Magomedshapi Vagabov.
Vagabov takes off his grey, sheep’s wool cap. His house lies in the shadow of a mosque that towers like a fortress over Gubden, a village in the mountains of Dagestan, a Russian republic in the Caucasus region. Representatives of the central government in Moscow rarely come to Gubden without the protection of armored vehicles and helicopters. It’s not Russian criminal law but Sharia law that applies in this village of 4,000 inhabitants, many of whom sympathize with the Islamist insurgents who have spent more than a decade trying to establish a theocracy that would extend from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea.
Close to 9 million people live in the autonomous republics of Russia’s northern Caucasus. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, each of these republics, particularly Chechnya, has been plagued by terrorism and war. But nowhere is the situation today as explosive as it is in Dagestan. This desperately poor strip of land on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, which is smaller than the US state of West Virginia, is home to several dozen ethnic groups that are bitterly at odds over government posts and grazing land, while an Islamist insurgency wages a war against Moscow and Dagestan’s Russian-controlled government.
Almost Ungovernable
The resistance against the military campaigns of Czarist troops began in Dagestan more than 150 years ago. Russia needed a force of more than 300,000 to finally subjugate the region after a war than raged for about 30 years. The spirit of resistance continues to shape the republic today. Two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, chaos prevails in Dagestan, primarily because of the activities of radical Islamists. The Caucasus republic has become almost ungovernable.
In less than four years, the world will come together in the region for the 2014 Winter Olympics, which are being held in the city of Sochi. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin insists that this will not be a problem, and yet his Interior Ministry has just reported that the number of terrorist attacks in the northern Caucasus has more than doubled. Only last Wednesday, armed men stormed a hydroelectric power plant in the Kabardino-Balkar Republic, where they detonated three bombs. Sometimes the attacks even hit the Russian capital: In late March, a group of young female suicide bombers from Dagestan blew themselves up in the Moscow subway, killing themselves and 40 others.
In Makhachkala, the Dagestani capital, there are reports of attacks on a daily basis. In the last two weeks alone, a high-ranking judge, a Christian priest, three police officers and mayor were shot to death, policemen were injured when a bomb exploded, and another bomb caused a train to derail…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan: British Soldier Shot in Afghanistan is Saved by His Rosary… Just Like His Great-Grandfather in WWII
A soldier who stood on a landmine and was shot in the chest in Afghanistan is convinced a rosary saved his life in exactly the same way as his great-grandfather towards the end of the Second World War.
Glenn Hockton, 19, who is now home from a seven-month tour of duty with the Coldstream Guards in Helmand Province, was on patrol when his rosary suddenly fell from his neck.
His mother Sheri Jones said today: ‘He felt like he had a slap on the back. He bent down to pick up his rosary to see if it was broken. As he bent down he realised he was on a landmine.’
Glenn had to stand there for 45 terrifying minutes while his colleagues successfully managed to get to him.
Mrs Jones, from Tye Green, Essex, said she was physically sick when her son rang to tell her of his ordeal.
His great-grandfather Joseph ‘Sunny’ Truman also credited a rosary with saving his life in a World War II blast that killed six members of his platoon.
He was with the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and after being captured towards the end of the war, he and other prisoners were forced to march away from the advancing Allied armies.
Mrs Jones, 41, recalled: ‘He was walking across a field with half a dozen of his platoon. He bent down to pick something up and was the only one to survive a sudden bomb blast. He had picked up a rosary.’
[…]
His mother said the Army had changed her son’s life since he left Notley High School at 15.
She said: ‘He is a better person. He went in a snotty-nosed 16-year-old that knew everything, a Jack the Lad. The change in him is unreal. It is a good change. I am very proud of him.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
British High Commissioner Summoned by Pakistan Government as Cameron Faces Backlash Over ‘Terror’ Comments
The Pakistani government summoned Britain’s High Commissioner today for talks aimed at diffusing the diplomatic row over David Cameron’s remarks about Islamist violence in the country.
Adam Thomson met with Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi this morning to discuss the comments made by Mr Cameron during a visit to India last week.
The Prime Minister sparked fury last week after he suggested elements in Pakistan were ‘looking both ways’ on Islamist violence and ‘promoting the export of terror’.
Effigies of Mr Cameron were burnt by protesters in the streets of Karachi and a visit to London by agents of Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency for talks with British security officers was cancelled.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: ‘We can confirm that the British High Commissioner to Pakistan met this morning with the foreign minister, at the request of the ministry of foreign affairs.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Protecting Afghan Civilians a Priority, Petraeus Tells Troops
US general tells Nato troops they must strike a balance between pursuing the enemy and winning over civilians
General David Petraeus has warned that the alliance ‘cannot kill or capture our way to victory’. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
General David Petraeus has ordered all Nato troops under his command in Afghanistan to pursue the enemy relentlessly, but also stressed the need to “reduce civilian casualties to an absolute minimum”.
By prioritising efforts to earn the trust of the Afghan people, the US general countered concerns that he would relax strict rules of engagement that have angered some troops who say it puts them at greater risk when fighting insurgents.
In four pages of fresh guidelines published on Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) website , Petraeus says protecting Afghan civilians from injury by coalition operations remained a top priority.
Addressing the 150,000 international soldiers, sailors and marines under his command as simply “team”, Petraeus warns that the alliance “cannot kill or capture our way to victory”.
The guidelines add: “Moreover, if we kill civilians or damage their property in the course of operations, we will create more enemies than our operations eliminate.”
The general, who rose to prominence both as the architect of the “surge” strategy in Iraq and as author of the US army’s official manual on counterinsurgency operations, re-emphasised many orders made by his two predecessors, David McKiernan and Stanley McChrystal.
They include requirements for soldiers to set up bases as close as possible to the Afghan civilians they are protecting, saying they cannot “commute to the fight”. There are also warnings that patrols should be done on foot rather than in vehicles and that soldiers should take off their sunglasses when talking to Afghans.
Both Petraeus’s predecessors were sacked by their political masters in Washington, with McChrystal removed in June after the publication of an article in Rolling Stone magazine in which his inner circle criticised top US politicians.
But for all the emphasis on winning hearts and minds, Petraeus also signalled a new aggression in the fight against the Taliban, ordering troops to “pursue the enemy relentlessly”.
While McChrystal’s rules of engagement have not been altered, a rule on the use of air strikes against buildings has been clarified after a review revealed that many junior officers applied it too rigidly.
It requires extreme care to be used when air strikes or artillery fire are ordered on buildings where insurgents are fighting in order to avoid destroying houses or killing civilians who might be sheltering there. The clarification seeks to dispel the belief of lower-level commanders that such strikes on abandoned homes are completely forbidden.
In yesterday’s guidelines Petraeus also ordered his subordinates to “fight the information war aggressively” by hanging “their barbaric actions like millstones around their necks”, a move already reflected in Isaf’s public communications.
And foreign soldiers will also be expected to play a greater role in helping crack down on corrupt government officials, including by bringing “networks of malign actors” — Nato code for ostensibly pro-government warlords — to the attention of superior officers…
| — Hat tip: Andy Bostom | [Return to headlines] |
350,000 Foreigners Enter Britain on ‘Student’ Visas
Nearly 350,000 foreigners entered Britain on suspect student visas last year despite new rules to curb the number of illegal immigrants, officials said Monday.
Home Office figures reveal the total of visiting ‘students’ and their dependents rocketed to 344,396 in the 12 months to April. That was a whopping 84,321 more than the previous year, a rise of nearly a third.
Student visas are notoriously abused by illegal immigrants since a new points-based system came in two years ago in an effort to stem the flow. There are no checks to see if the students attend courses or whether they go home afterwards, The Sun reported.
Thousands also cheat by applying for visas to study at colleges which do not exist. Tory Immigration Minister Damian Green said of the new figures: ‘This is proof that under the last Government, the number of student visas rocketed. Labour allowed this system to get out of control.’
‘This Government will work hard to bring the number of student visas down while also addressing the problem of bogus colleges,’ he added..
Migrationwatch UK’s Sir Andrew Green said: ‘There is growing evidence that the new points-based system has provided a back door to Britain for bogus students.’
The new figures were revealed by Home Office Minister Baroness Neville-Jones in an answer to a parliamentary question tabled by Ulster Unionist peer Lord Laird.
It also emerged Sunday that the UK Border Agency overpaid 13 million pounds in benefits to asylum seekers in the last two years.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Merkel Blasts Economy Minister’s Plan to Recruit Skilled Migrants
Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Federal Employment Agency on Monday rejected an Economy Ministry proposal to accelerate recruitment for skilled migrants, saying Germany should focus on its own potential instead.
Last week, pro-business Free Democrat and Economy Minister Rainer Brüderle said that a major recruitment drive to attract skilled migrants was in the works, including programmes to encourage German firms to pay cash incentives to lure foreign workers.
Economists agree that Germany’s export-driven economy, which relies heavily on skilled workers such as engineers to develop its high-end manufactured goods to sell overseas, will be gradually eroded in years to come by a dearth of such qualified professionals.
But on Monday Merkel’s deputy spokesperson Cristoph Steegmans said that new rules put into place in January 29 were already having a positive effect on the situation, making Brüderle’s new proposal unnecessary.
That law had changed the minimum yearly income level for skilled workers from €86,400 to €63,600. According to Steegmans, Merkel believes this rule should be readdressed first.
The comments from the spokesperson followed those from Frank Jürgen Weise, head of the Federal Employment Agency, who also spoke against Brüderle’s plan, telling daily Financial Times Deutschland that the country should look inwards for solutions to the shrinking workforce.
“The existing potential in country should be used first,” he told the paper. “We can’t allow people to remain unemployed only because their talents aren’t being used.”
Brüderle’s plan should only be a second option, he added.
“Those who want to have and keep qualified employees must offer something — and the companies can decide on that themselves,” he said, adding that one important option would be providing much-needed child care for the many skilled women in Germany.
But the Association of German Engineers (VDI) welcomed Brüderle’s idea.
“The skilled labour shortage will intensify due to demographic developments, particularly in the engineering sector,” director Willi Fuchs said, adding that currently there are some 36,000 unfilled engineering jobs.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK:£13million Missing After Labour’s ‘Crazy’ Attempts to Bribe Illegal Immigrants to Go Home
Home Office papers show how the last government was so wasteful with public money that £13million has gone missing — with officials having no idea how it was spent.
Immigration minister Damian Green has ordered an urgent internal investigation to find out if the taxpayer has been short-changed.
The accounts also reveal how Labour:
- Paid £1.2million in bribes to people who never even set foot in Britain
- Gave repatriation grants to migrants from wealthy countries — including the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand
- Lavished thousands on teaching foreign preachers about life in ‘multi-cultural’ Britain
- Sent Afghans on year-long holidays to see if they would like to go home permanently
- Bribed Poles to go home in the same year their country joined the EU, meaning they became eligible to immediately return to the UK
- Handed almost £50,000 to the Ukraine to build a ‘migration advice centre’ n Wasted £25,141 on a cancelled project to support ‘artisans’ in Afghanistan
- Paid £68,235 to China — an industrial powerhouse — to strengthen its migration controls.
The accounts detail how Labour spent almost £80million on schemes designed to encourage failed asylum seekers and illegal immigrants to go home.
The payments — denounced as ‘bribes’ by critics — were designed to dramatically increase the number of people being removed from the UK.
Ministers decided it was cheaper and easier than border guards tracking the illegal immigrants down themselves and forcibly putting them on a plane.
Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘These crazy, badly thought-out schemes should never have received a penny of taxpayers’ money.
‘It’s good that the new government has uncovered this waste and is trying to track down where our missing money has gone, but let’s hope they also step up efforts to deport illegal immigrants more speedily. Confidence in the immigration system needs to be restored, and taxpayers’ money shouldn’t be squandered.’
Last night, Mr Green said: ‘I have launched an investigation into the money provided by the UK Border Agency to the IOM over the past five years.
‘The Agency’s finances are closely monitored, however we must ensure that taxpayers’ money is spent wisely and every penny is accounted for.’
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Thousands March in Stockholm Pride Parade
An estimated 35,000 people took to the streets of Stockholm on Saturday for the city’s annual Gay Pride parade.
Marchers were kitted out in costumes ranging from the pope to Barbie dolls as they expressed their support for the fight against discrimination.
“The aim is to highlight discriminatory structures in society and point out that all people have the power to make a difference,” organisers said in a statement.
Several Swedish politicians took part in the march about a month-and-a-half before parliamentary elections on September 19.
“It is a major demonstration for openness and tolerance. We want Sweden to be a modern country where it is possible to choose how and with whom you want to live,” Finance Minister Anders Borg told the TT news agency.
The head of the Social Democrat party Mona Sahlin, who said she has participated each year in Gay Pride, commented that “it is fantastic to see how things have changed over the last 10 years.”
The dressed up marchers, who also included Roman emperors and sailors, danced through the streets on the way to the “Pride Village” where several concerts were to be held Saturday night.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘We Have Learned Nothing From the Genome’
In a SPIEGEL interview, genetic scientist Craig Venter discusses the 10 years he spent sequencing the human genome, why we have learned so little from it a decade on and the potential for mass production of artificial life forms that could be used to produce fuels and other resources.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Venter, when the elite among gene researchers undertook the decoding of the human genome, you were their greatest enemy. They called you “Frankenstein,” “blood sucker,” “Darth Venter” and even “asshole.” Why do you attract so much hostility?
Venter: Well, nobody likes to be beaten — by superior intelligence, planning and technology. That gets people upset.
SPIEGEL: Every area of science is competitive. But it doesn’t lead to that kind of hostility in all areas.
Venter: The human genome project was completely different, it was supposed to be the biggest thing in the history of biological sciences. Billions in government funding for a single project — we had never seen anything like that before in biology. And then a single person comes along and beats scientists who have been working on it for years. It is no wonder they didn’t like that.
SPIEGEL: Wasn’t it more the case that your opponents were afraid that you, as a profit-oriented entrepreneur, would make the human genome your own private property?
Venter: That is totally absurd; and you know it. Initially, Francis Collins and the other people on the Human Genome Project claimed that my methods would never work. When they started to realize that they were wrong, they began personal attacks against me and made up these things about the ownership of the genome. It was all absurd.
SPIEGEL: So it was all just propaganda?
Venter: At the end of the day, it is an argument over nothing. But this battle between common good and commerce — that is the kind of story that sells newspapers.
SPIEGEL: Was the importance of gene patents, which fueled the dispute, exaggerated?
Venter: First of all, nobody has made any serious money off patents on human genes except patent attorneys. Second, I do not hold any patents on human genes. You can do a patent search. Then you can convince yourself.
SPIEGEL: On June 26, 2000, you had a major event — you met with Francis Collins at the White House …
Venter: … yeah, it was obviously a big historic event. It was pretty stunning, making an announcement at the White House to the entire world. It was a big triumph for me and my team because it proved that we had won.
SPIEGEL: At the time, none of you had won. Nobel Prize recipient John Sulston, one of the researchers of the government-funded genome project wrote …
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
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